Postal service canceling Saturday mail delivery | News

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As packages and mail file into bins at the post office downtown, they'll head out quickly onto routes of postal service drivers for delivery. The envelopes, letters, and magazines will likely�arrive sometime Thursday or through next week, just not Sunday.

Starting August 5 however, mail won't be delivered on Saturdays either.�

Karen Fairlee is the Postmaster General in Spokane; she said post offices open on Saturdays now will still be open, and those�P.O. boxes will still be delivered to. Packages will also still arrive at your home on the weekend.

"For a lot of people the change will be pretty invisible," Fairlee said.

She added the loss of one mail delivery day has been a process considered by the US Postal Service for a long time.

video "Recent national polls indicate that 70 percent of the people in the country really don't mind going to a five-day delivery," she said.

Fairlee claims it won't trickle down to layoffs and noted�since 2006, 100,000�employees have left the postal service exclusively through attrition.

"We've been planning for reduced workload for a long time," Fairlee added. "So really the impact to our employees as far as secure employment should be minimal."

The postal service has already slashed hours at smaller offices, though no closures are planned.�

The cut of Saturday delivery saves�$2 Billion�for the postal service, but�is only part of the $20 Billion deficit it needs to make up. As the change of mail service only cuts 10 percent of the deficit, more must be done to balance their budget.

"This is not the beginning of our cuts. This is something that really needed to be done a lot more quickly," Fairlee said.